Reflections by award-winning maritime historian Joan Druett, author of many books about the sea

Search This Blog

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Thoreau video game gets NEA grant

Writer who evaded poll tax inspires video game

Henry David Thoreau declared that he would rather go to jail than pay taxes that contributed to causes he didn't believe in (such as the war with Mexico). Now the man who devised the philosophy of civil disobedience has inspired a video game -- one that presumably illustrates the same credo.
And who knows what the consequences might be?

Galley Cat reports:

The University of Southern California has received a $40,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to produce a video game based on the work of Henry David Thoreau.

Here’s more about the project: “To support production costs for a video game based on the writings of Henry David Thoreau at Walden Pond. The player will inhabit an open, three-dimensional game world which will simulate the geography and environment of Walden Woods. Once developed, the game will be available online.”

It will either be a castaway-style story -- day-to-day survival in a hut in the woods, or a political battle -- fighting off the nasty tax collectors, those representatives of the government who interfere with people who simply want to get on with collecting riches and making sure that they are taxed as little as possible. Taken seriously it could segue into the story of Gandhi and the successes and failures of the civil disobedience movement, but what do you bet that the castaway option is the way they will go?

The NEA used to be very liberal, up until the fracas over the Emma Gay. What is the philosophy now?

You may not be aware of other, more contemplative options: check out the games FLOWER and JOURNEY as examples. Exploration unlocks poetry, perhaps. Not likely to be a standard videogame - insufficient budget, for starters.